This is the sort of page for people who like gruesome things... (for small boys and tadpoles!)

It's amazing what you discover at the bottom of the Garden sometimes

This was my first encounter with Clathrus ruber. (Cage Fungus).According to my various books on fungus the best description is; A rare species, confined to warm areas and more common around the Mediterranean. It grows on soil in deciduous woodland.Let me explain how bad this smells...It is nauseating. And the flies like it!The smell kind of gets stuch in your nose and makes you feel ill even after about 15 minutes!Babies NappiesSickRotting prawnsEven sewers don't smell the same as this.

This is a picture of the unhatched eggs.

Egg 2-3 cm in diameter, off white, membranous, gelatinous, arising from root like, white mycelial cords.At this point they don't look much different to a regular puffball.There are two nice tasty puffballs, the Lycoperdon perlatum (common puffball) and Lycoperdon pyriforme (Stump Puffball), and then there is the Vascellum pratense which is good to eat when it is very young.I actually don't even want to cut this up to have a look...

This is one that had started to 'hatch'... creepy!

Rupturing to release the fruitbody. The fruitbody gets up to 10cm high, forming a net-like globe of hollow arms, bright red to salmon pink, with the gleba on the inner surface.Gleba green, slimy.Spores yellow green, 5-6 x 1.5 - 2 microns, smooth.Season June to August. (It's early May in the north of France)Edibility Unknown.... believe me I can eat most things, but I don't think I would even contemplate this. It looks too much like a brain!Mind you, sheeps brains are another matter!

The Dog got a Mole

Sad as I think they are lovely, and if you like long stories the Duncton Trilogy is wonderful.I am not sure if having holes dug in the ground is as annoying as having molehills.You can definitly see that muttley grin on her face when she has got something.. You can almost hear her saying, "I'm a Dog, It's my Job"!

This is over exposed Toad!

I chose this picture as it has its eyes open. No I didn't use a flash!You can see all it's warty lumps and little feet though.Unfortunately these are lethal to a Dog, so now they are out we have to keep a close eye on Her.She nearly asphyxiated a couple of years ago.

This is a Gruesom picture.

I think the green fish to the right of the dead one getting eaten by tadpoles is a (Carp?).I went and looked this up again as I decided Carp were a different shape and a sort of goldy brown colour.I think it's a European Perch.It likes eating small live/dead fish and worms. So it's hanging out for a snack!It probably doesn't like tadpoles. My dog doesn't like the taste of moles. She plays triumphantly with a Rat when she gets one, but the moles are obviously not nice to taste.

This is the Bat that got rescued from our water butt.

He/She must have been 'rowing' about in it for hours. (It isn't swimming, and they don't like it).Brave little creature.Amazing that he/she kept his/her head above water all that time!Lovely that my Husband rescued it, he was taking the dog for her morning constitutional when he first thought there was a bird in the water butt.I was still in bed and he brought it up for me to see, I said 'Get it to the Barn Quick!'Grabbed my camera on the way and got a few shots of it before my Husband hid it on a high ledge.Then it managed to crawl up the rest of the wall into the beams.Inspiring.One Bat escaped from Hell!

Still feisty though!

Definitely wanted to get in the Barn.

More Gardening friends

Super Slug!It led me to it's other little friends, so I evicted them all out of the greenhouse to a weed patch.

These are it's friends

Now when things are growing in the greenhouse these come out at night and snaffle all the little plants... They do this all over the garden, so if you have young plants and flowers, or your best veg and blooms are getting decimated you have to keep them under control.The easiest way to deal with them is to go out with a torch just after dark when they come out.Then you pick them all off, using a pair of gloves if you like, and collect them in a bag.If you use a bucket they all try to crawl out, and they go all over the place, and you have to catch them again.The Birds dont eat them, so the best thing to do, if you have a very big garden is take them somewhere where it's dark and damp and full of weeds and rotting wood.If you have a small garden, I guess the dustbin is just as good, as they like rummiging through old food. Don't prod and hurt them, because God made them too!

Huge Spider.

Nice legs!There's a spider skeleton in the front of the picture too.I am going to put another picture of this spider from the top, because the markings are fantastic.I like lots of spiders in my greenhouse because they eat other bugs and insects that are not good for my plants.

Lovely!

Look at how the legs fit into the body!They almost look like they are made of metal!Lovely shiny exoskeleton.Nice spiky barbs on the legs.Actually you can see how downy it is better in the other picture.It sat sunning itself for ages, so I didn't get round to cleaning this little plastic set of drawers off today.

This is a Common Stinkhorn.

I think it might be a distant cousin of the creepy fungus at the top of this page.I found them growing in my strawberry patch yesterday..... They are realy interesting there is a wickipedia link you can look at.It has a cool latin name as well.And it stinks like something dead, (Like Latin if you are made to learn it!) However it's useful to learn the latin names of things, because thats how we all know what they are.Everybody has a different description or 'common name' in their own language for things, but sometimes it's useful to have a common language so that everyone knows they are talking about the same thing.Not many people speak latin, that's why it's called a 'dead' language.I don't speak Latin, but I like to learn the names of things in Latin if I write them, or I want to read something old.Some languages are only spoken and not written down, this is a shame because if not enough people continue to keep speaking a language like this, it is lost forever.

I think Moths are Beautiful.

This is not a very clear Picture.Some people don't like Moths flying around at night.It's important not to touch them, because they get damaged very easily.If you get one indoors, just turn most of the lights off, and they often go to the windows to try to get outside. Then just open the window if you can to let them out.Every living creature has God's breath in it.